Telefang bootleg on Aliexpress

Being Japanese exclusive games, Smilesoft games are hard to find. If you find any auctions, list them here!
Post Reply
Selyte(imported)
Posts: 75
Joined: Wed Dec 30, 2009 12:44 am

Re: Telefang bootleg on Aliexpress

Post by Selyte(imported) »

Hi everyone!
Long time I don't write here, BUT...

I noticed that Aliexpress has listed a lot of game cartridges, most of them pirated games or hack roms.
Of course, a lot of them are of Pokemon and guess what...Pokemon Diamond for GBC, the english Telefang bootleg, is there!
There are three shops selling them
FIRST*
SECOND
THIRD

*it's not sure that these load saved states, the first one has a feedback that clearly says that this doesn't load them.
I bought two of them from the third shop today, they'll arrive in 2 months probably since I'm in Italy. I'll let you know! I'm so curious about it, and I couldn't resist that little price.

I was looking if there was the 2in1 version too or the Jade version but I found nothing. I just found a multi cart with printed on it diamond snake and the start screen of pokemon ruby 2 (the Telefang 2 bootleg) but it was a GBC cart. It could be that it is in other multicart, but I didn't check all the lists.
I looked for the Telefang 2 bootleg too but nothing too.


kmeisthax
Posts: 128
Joined: Sat Dec 04, 2010 3:20 pm

Re: Telefang bootleg on Aliexpress

Post by kmeisthax »

It blows my mind people are still making copies of old bootlegs. Like, what does this do to the secondary market for bootlegs? Are modern reprints of bootlegs considered counterfeits of a bootleg? Are people going to start buying 7 GRAND DAD carts as a joke, and spike the price?
Selyte(imported)
Posts: 75
Joined: Wed Dec 30, 2009 12:44 am

Re: Telefang bootleg on Aliexpress

Post by Selyte(imported) »

kmeisthax wrote:It blows my mind people are still making copies of old bootlegs. Like, what does this do to the secondary market for bootlegs? Are modern reprints of bootlegs considered counterfeits of a bootleg? Are people going to start buying 7 GRAND DAD carts as a joke, and spike the price?
Probably it's due to the fact that a lot of famous youtuber usually talk about them and these became quite "popular" or some kind of meme.
I always found these games interesting, I don't know exactly how they decide to produce them and when. I'm quite curious to be honest! xD
kmeisthax
Posts: 128
Joined: Sat Dec 04, 2010 3:20 pm

Re: Telefang bootleg on Aliexpress

Post by kmeisthax »

So, the fun thing about printed circuit board manufacturing is that it's actually really cheap, even in low volumes. It's more-or-less a really funky kind of printing where instead of using ink on paper, you're using copper on fiberglass. The only thing you need a custom chip for on a Gameboy is to replace the MBC circuit - the RAM, battery, and PROM on the cartridge can all be stock parts (albeit older ones). Designing and testing a new or clone chip is far more expensive than just making some PCBs, though. So most likely someone built an MBC3 clone a while back, and everyone else just copied it. Bootleggers copy from each other more often than they copy from Nintendo sometimes. Hence why Diamond and Jade don't have day/night cycles - the MBC3 clones they built/stole don't have clocks in them, so they removed the part of the code that interfaces with them.

That's not the only way to build a Game Boy cartridge, of course. Flashcarts will need EEPROM, NAND flash, or an SD card socket depending on how advanced they are. Stuff like the Everdrive series will use an FPGA instead of an MBC clone so they can rewire the cartridge as needed (e.g. with new firmware or for specific games) to increase compatibility. The only downside, of course, is that it ratchets up the cost compared to just making a cartridge with fixed contents.
Selyte(imported)
Posts: 75
Joined: Wed Dec 30, 2009 12:44 am

Re: Telefang bootleg on Aliexpress

Post by Selyte(imported) »

Yesterday it finally arrived!
It doesn't save the state (crash when you press continue) neither allow to compose the secret numbers (crash when you try to do it), as I expected.
Anyway it arrived with tracked shipping, and both with their cases.

Image

I'm so happy to finally have this. Wondering if there's a way to load states anyway, or to use the original antenna with that.
I'd like to connect the two bootleg version too, or the original one with the bootleg. Is there somebody that already tried that and know if it works?

Anyway it seems that Aliexpress banned the shop and a lot of other stores that sell bootleg games. What a pity, there was a lot of carts I'd love to buy in the future...
User avatar
andwhyisit
Site Admin
Posts: 1197
Joined: Fri Dec 14, 2007 9:24 pm

Re: Telefang bootleg on Aliexpress

Post by andwhyisit »

Your image seems to be broken for me.
Post Reply